


Of cold, not of darkness

by acaramelmacchiato



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Crepes, F/M, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, all spy aus take place during the cold war, also if you're in a cold war spy au, bahorel is the planet's worst spy he's in the wrong au, you gotta be freezing to death in the urals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bahorel and Bahorel's Laughing Mistress: the Cold War Spy AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of cold, not of darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goshemily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/gifts).



Bahorel, no first name, was freezing to death in southwest Sverdlovsk, overfurnished with fastroping equipment, holding onto a briefcase filled with photocopies of steel production metrics, and in the company of an extremely attractive French agent who would not introduce herself. Opting for one rather than two out of three, he counted himself lucky that he would shuffle icily from the mortal coil in the presence of someone he could at least share memories of his favorite crêpes with.

 

“Some coincidence!” he shouted to her, and the wind died halfway through his first syllable so he sounded idiotic and she laughed at him. 

 

“Yes,” she said. “No wonder you’ve found yourself in such an enormous cockup. If you’re covert, you should speak quietly; this is a general rule; though perhaps since we don’t seem to have flares you could try shouting again.”

 

Affronted, Bahorel held his briefcase tighter to his chest. “In my defense,” he said. “I am at the mercy of a very stupid plan.”

 

It was February.

 

Below them, either the Vishera or the Chusovaya River, or possibly some third unknown river, glittered threateningly up in a way that reminded Bahorel’s extremely French heart and numbing French extremities precisely why Napoleon Bonaparte had been driven from Moscow.

 

“We could try the fastroping equipment,” he said, nodding his head back at the pile of it set up against a lichenous rock face.

 

The other spy grimaced, but then she laughed at him again. “Shall we rig up a rope all the way to Paris?”

 

“I don’t know which direction Paris is in,” said Bahorel primly, feeling ice on his mustache. “But since you mention Paris, and since I will certainly die once the frostbite reaches my heart, I shall have to confide in you the exultations and miseries of my life. First. As a child I was never sufficiently encouraged in the arts; result: a violent disposition and a career in espionage, such as it is. Youth: In school I was never promising. Adulthood: I had a group of intimate friends, each bolder, more extraordinary, than the last, and when they joined the PCA I was sent to Perm, where you will notice I was able to assemble quite a bit of paperwork in violation of national trust. Vices: All of them, especially a stupidity too penetrating to allow me to learn from them. Virtues: amity and the mustache you see before you. Loves: few, and typically destructive --”

 

“-- I've decided we should try to live,” said his fellow spy, still laughing at him. She had dark eyes, glittering warmly even though the cold wind made her shed tears. “Mostly because we will have to concentrate very hard on living and you will have to be silent. Also, we will have to huddle together for warmth.”

 

“This godforsaken country,” said Bahorel. “I’m surprised there aren’t foreign agents huddled up in pairs up and down the length of it, like children on a class trip, refusing to be separated for fear we -- _Christ crucified!_ I think my nose has frozen off.”

 

“It’s still attached,” said his companion, and unfolded a metallized polyethylene terephthalate blanket which she evidently had at hand in a rucksack.

 

“That’s much more useful than all that fastroping kit,” he said, mournfully.

 

“But you made a good effort by bringing a damn lot of it.”

 

“You’re laughing at me,” said Bahorel.

 

“It’s possible. Open your coat and take your arms out of the sleeves,” she said, and breathed onto his mustache to unfreeze it end by end.

 

Huddled in his parka under the blanket, he found himself embracing the other spy with patriotic resolve and tenderness, the way he embraced the Common Market when he thought about it trying to fall asleep. Only this was a living woman, with her attractive laughing eyes and the faint glitter of frost on her eyebrows, who was still somehow planning on letting him die under a blanket engineered for space travel without hearing what he missed most about crêpes.

 

“Artichoke crêpes,” he said, his voice trumpeting awkwardly now that they were so close and he could feel her warm breath on his neck.

 

“Funny,” she said. “I was just thinking about artichoke crêpes.”

 

“My god,” said Bahorel. “Really?”

 

“No, because we are in a precarious political situation higher in the Urals than we have any reason to be, holding stolen paperwork and a truly comical amount of military rope and are very likely to either die or be killed.”

 

Bahorel felt his face fall stiffly, because of the cold.

 

“That is my favorite crêpe,” he said. “There’s no need to be rude about a dying man’s final reminiscence.”

 

“You’re not dying,” she said. “Though you would be if they hadn’t sent me after you. Speaking of, we will almost certainly be rescued.”

 

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Bahorel, darkly. “I have a theory about myself, you see, and it is that I have been endlessly reincarnated in absolutely hopeless political situations which always kill me. I was very likely a communard. I think I have always been a Frenchmen and I don’t think I’ve ever quite made it past forty years old.”

 

“Even if you’re right,” she said. “This is not so much a hopeless political situation as a failure on your part to plan adequately. You’re lucky I’m here.”

 

“I would have found a moose to huddle with for warmth,” he said. “It would be much more tender about my memories of home etc.”

 

“Tell me about your friends,” she said. “Are they as funny as you?”

 

“They’re humorless bastards to the last man,” said Bahorel. “But intrepid, complimentary things, handsome, good men, for the rest. You should meet them. They would tease me for my laughing colleague and wonder why no one takes me totally seriously.”

 

“Because you hiked out of Perm in a business suit, a parka, and a briefcase filled with illegal documents and ropes.”

 

“I am a man of action more than I am a man of foresight,” said Bahorel.

 

They shared a kiss to preserve warmth at an even more expedient rate when the helicopter arrived and they had only enough time to zip up their parkas and place a bet on whether it was French rescue or Soviet arrest. Then immediately thereafter, each resolved to win or to lose, they had one final moment more to share a laugh.  


End file.
